Monday, April 30, 2012

HAITI - Creole, Literacy, and Education

The question as to which language or languages to use in
educating the children of Haiti and in adult literacy programs, which
are organized by both government and voluntary organizations in Haiti,
has generated a lot of debate among educationists and the Haitian public
at large. Two languages are spoken in Haiti, Creole and French. Creole
is the most universally spoken language in Haiti, accounting for over
ninety percent of native monolingual speakers; whereas French language
has for the past two centuries enjoyed the pride of place as the
country's sole medium of official government and business transactions
as well as the language of education. To understand the position of the
various parties to this debate, we have to go back to the evolution of
language and education in Haiti since its independence from France on
January 1, 1804.Post Independence Haiti Haiti
transformed itself from a slave colony of France to a full fledged
self-governing and independent entity through sustained armed struggle
and war between the French slave owners and their enslaved African
fellow human beings. The revolutionary war was long, bitter, but
sustained by the grim determination of the enslaved Africans to break
the yoke of French enslavement from their necks or otherwise die in the
attempt. When the white French were finally expelled from Haiti, their
language remained as the means of official communication in all
government and business transactions. The place of preeminence and
influence vacated by the departing French was taken over by their
mulatto offspring, who then occupied the elite upper class of the
emergent Haitian society.
The unique position of the half-French
and half-African mulattoes, as heirs to their departing French fathers,
gave them the economic and political clout to call the shots in all
aspects of Haitian public and educational life. This they did by
entrenching the continued use of the French language in all official
government business, as well as making French the only language of
educational instruction. The vast majority of Haitians could neither
speak nor write in French. This majority was consisted mostly of the
Afro-Haitians, who were uneducated, and thus could not in any way
contributed to the national discourse; whereas they constituted over
ninety percent of the total Haitian population. The Afro-Haitians spoke
only Creole, which until recently, was not recognized as an official
language in Haiti.Modern Haiti The situation of
things continued like this for over a hundred years. The little progress
made by a rather small number of Afro-Haitians who became educated did
not have any effect on the dominant status and position of French
language in Haitian national affairs. Instead, by what would amount to a
rather ironic twist of events, these Afro-Haitians having moved up from
their lowly status in the rural peasantry, through urban low class, to
the urban middle class, were more interested in entrenching their
positions, rather changing things for better for their fellow
marginalized brothers and sisters in the lower classes of Haitian
society.
These middle class Afro-Haitians behaved like typical
status seeking social climbers, who believed that the French language
was their passport to further their upward movement in Haitian society.
Hence they teamed up with Haitian mulattoes in the elite upper class to
frustrate any attempt at changing the status quo. To complicate issues
further for the promotion of Creole into a national language, and a
medium of instruction in schools, some members of the peasant class felt
that it was better for their children to be taught in French, so that
they could escape the poverty trap of Haitian rural peasantry. Even
those past Haitian governments that claimed to represent the interests
of the masses have hesitated to give Creole and French equal legal
status, in order not to step on powerful toes of elite mulattoes in the
upper class.
Creole language thus remained an informal medium of
communication for over a hundred and seventy years. It was only in the
late 1970s that the government gave approval for the use of Creole in
education. Implementation of government approval was not wholeheartedly
carried out. As late as the 1980s, there was still some doubt about
whether Creole should be used in primary schools. In 1987, a major break
through came with the inclusion of Creole in the Haitian National
Constitution, as a co-national language of Haiti along with French. The
door was now open for integration of the more popular Creole language
into the school educational system.
However, a lot still needs to
be done by both government and non-governmental organizations to really
take Creole language into its rightful place as the authentic national
language of Haiti. As a first and urgent step, the standardization of
Creole orthography should be pursued with vigor by linguists in academia
and all those interested in its progress, beyond a mere glorified
appendage to French. The National Pedagogic Institute (Institut
Pédagogique Nacional--IPN) has taken the initiative by developing an
orthography of Creole language that includes elements of the two systems
previously in use. In the areas of popular literature, books and
magazines need to be produced in Creole at a faster rate than is
available at the moment. The print and electronic media have taken
tentative steps to popularize Creole literature, but much more needs to
be done.
The government of Haiti needs to take the implementation
of the relevant portions of the 1987 Haitian National Constitution more
seriously. All aspects of the national life of Haiti need to feel the
presence of Creole language, as a medium of official transactions. Much
work needs to be done urgently in curriculum development at all levels
of Haiti's education, using Creole as a medium of such development.
Similarly, adult literacy programs should be established to upgrade the
literacy level of Haitian rural peasant and urban lower classes. It is
noteworthy that some church groups have taken the bull by the horn, by
publishing some religious literature in Creole language. The popular
monthly Bon Nouvel, published by a Roman Catholic group, is one such
publication. The New Testament half of The Holy Bible has also been
published in Creole through the efforts a group of Protestant churches.